Keagen Hadley is a Doctor of Occupational Therapy, a psychiatric and neurological clinical researcher, and an Amazon Bestselling author who specializes in using psychological treatments such as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) with clients. He is an expert at helping people deal with the psychological impacts of sports Injury. He has a deep understanding of the interventions and knows how emotional distress can interfere with rehabilitation, daily activities, and overall quality of life. As an athlete, he tore both ACLs playing college and semi-professional football. This experience made him acutely aware of the struggles associated with ACL injuries and the various issues that can arise psychologically due to this condition.

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Contact Info

• Website: www.KeagenHadley.com
• Book: Torn: Overcoming the Psychological Challenges Post-ACL Injury by Keagen Hadley
• Blog: Keagen's Blog

Most Influential Person

• Dr. John Delony

Effect on Emotions

• Mindfulness has changed how I deal with my emotions. Now I actually sit with them and focus on them. Mindfulness almost minimizes them. It is the same thing I do if I feel a panic attack or heavy anxiety coming on.
• I found it [mindfulness] almost minimizes the strength or the power that my emotions or anxiety have over me. Dealing differently with my emotions has helped me with the psychological impacts of sports Injury.

Thoughts on Breathing

• One practice that I got into as I was getting out of those difficult situations is my therapist had me take a cold shower. It's not for the reasons you might think; there's a plethora of benefits of cold showers, but actually it's very uncomfortable. But you still have to be able to practice your breathing during that experience. [Cold showers create a situation where you begin deep breathing].
• I found it was [deep breathing] a very good way to prepare myself pre-game. Some people get rather anxious prior to games. Personally, I'm a very superstitious person. So before my first start I actually threw up. So then every subsequent start I had to throw up. So a lot of athletes are very much like that. So I would say that gets you in the same type of hostile environment to where you still have to really focus on your breathing, even though it's extremely uncomfortable.

Suggested Resources

• Book: Rebound: Train Your Mind To Bounce Back Stronger From Sports Injuries by Carrie Jackson Cheadle and Cindy Kuzma
• Book: Torn: Overcoming the Psychological Challenges Post-ACL Injury by Keagen Hadley
• App: Write Daily – I tend to focus on writing for my mindfulness, actually. So I use Write Early for its daily prompts.

Bullying Story

• There are lots of forms of bullying. I work with a very specific kind of torment, whether you want to call it bullying or not. So these injuries, whether it be an Achilles tear, a Tommy John injury or an overhead throwing injury, or ACL injuries, as I said, they're very long recovery periods. (Note: Tommy Johns Surgery is typically used for UCL tears that happened due to overuse rather than a single traumatic event)
• And for most of that recovery period, they look fine. They're not walking around with a cast. It's internal healing.

Related Episodes

• Move On Using Faith and Healing; David McClam
• Self-Actualization Through Mindfulness; Nicholas Gregoriades
• Lessons From Life That Can’t Be Taught with Boxer, Ed Latimore

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